


sorrows line up like a set of waves

by QueenWithABeeThrone



Series: i wish we had more time (ws!steve trevor) [8]
Category: Justice League (2017), Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Justice League Spoilers, Winter Soldier AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 09:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12767781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/pseuds/QueenWithABeeThrone
Summary: “What do you think about the plane?”“I’d love to fly it someday,” says Steve, truthfully.or: Victor Stone meets Steve Trevor. they have, surprisingly, a lot in common.





	sorrows line up like a set of waves

**Author's Note:**

> title is from Barbara Crooker's ["My Heart"](http://www.versedaily.org/2017/myheart.shtml).
> 
>  **SPOILER WARNING FOR JUSTICE LEAGUE.** yodels about Steve being mentioned a whole bunch like AAAAAAAAA.

“You done there?”

“Don’t rush a miracle worker,” Victor calls to Bruce, and meticulously reattaches the wire. The Batmobile hums to life once more, and Victor slides himself out from under the car, wiping his hands off on a rag. “She’s all yours.”

“Sometimes I think my car likes you better than it likes me,” says Bruce, dryly. He pats the hood of the Batmobile, an absent-minded gesture of affection.

“I didn’t get the roof torn off by Parademons,” Victor shoots back.

“Months ago, that was _months_ ago—”

Victor rolls his eyes, huffs out a brief laugh. “Cars have very long memories,” he tells him, throwing the rag at him, and steps towards the schematics for the Hall of Justice that they’ve been working on. Usually Diana would be there making suggestions and improvements, but lately she’s been pretty quiet. Something to do, he’s sure, with her undead assassin boyfriend.

Lot of them not-dead folks walking around, lately. First Victor himself, then Clark, now Steve.

He leans on the table, squints at the hologram of the hall. “You’re missing something,” he says.

Bruce sighs. “No matter what you and Barry can offer me,” he says, “I’m not hanging a picture of either of you dabbing in the hall. We need to present some _professionalism_.”

“You dropped four hundred dollars on bananas, bread and peanut butter at a mom-and-pop store two days ago and told the cashier to keep the change,” says Victor.

“So? It isn’t that much,” says Bruce, and once more Victor is a little gobsmacked by how rich Bruce Wayne is. Four hundred dollars on _groceries_. No wonder Barry’d almost had a heart attack. If Victor was still completely human, he’d have had one too.

And that, Victor reflects, is why neither he nor Barry will ever be able to get a poster of Barry dabbing into the hall. Between them, they have enough money to maybe buy a pizza to bribe Bruce with.

“To _you_ ,” says Victor, and then that’s all he can say because he hears the alarm, first—an intruder in the Batcave. He straightens up, right arm changing smoothly into a cannon, and says to Bruce, “Someone’s inside.”

Bruce has three Batarangs flicked out from his sleeve in a flash. “Who?” he says.

Victor pulls up the feed, playing it in his head, as he steps closer to the entrance.

Then he lowers the cannon.

“It’s just Diana,” he says. He pauses, mentally notes the man with her, and adds, “and Trevor.”

“Oh,” says Bruce.

\--

“You’re sure they’re not going to shoot on sight?” says Steve, as he and Diana descend the stairs into the Justice League’s temporary underground headquarters.

“I’m sure,” says Diana. “I’ve vouched for you with Bruce, and Victor likely already knows you’re with me.” She takes his hand, pecks him on the cheek. “You’ll be fine.”

He kind of wishes he had her confidence. All he can think of is the bright glow of Victor Stone’s arm cannon, aimed at him, and the silhouette of the Batman’s cape. He’d shot at him, felt distinctly displeased when the rounds didn’t manage to punch through the armor.

Still, even if they hadn’t, he’s pretty sure the guy still has some bruises left over—

“Steve,” says Diana, snapping him back to reality and to the—oh, they’re in a hangar now. “Take a look,” she says, gesturing grandly.

He turns to look.

Stares up at a troop carrier, a model on the very cutting edge of technology. Some part of him categorizes the weaknesses, notes how the design covers these well enough for an untrained eye to miss, approves of the strengths and the size of it. The rest of him just—

He just really wants to fly this thing. Hell, he’d be deliriously happy just to be inside it.

“What have I said about ringing the doorbell?” comes a tired, gravelly voice, and Steve snaps out of his trance, turns around to see Bruce Wayne, dressed to the nines, followed by—

He blinks at Victor. For a second some part of him is annoyed, that somehow the cyborg’s upgraded and covered his old weaknesses. The rest of him is horrified at himself.

“You look better,” he blurts.

A corner of Victor’s mouth twitches upwards. “Thanks,” he says. “I got a few upgrades.”

“I did ring the doorbell,” says Diana. “Three times. Alfred answered and told us you were busy down here.”

“And he didn’t tell me why?” says Wayne.

“I asked him to keep it a surprise,” says Diana. She takes Wayne aside for a moment’s discussion, leaving Steve alone with Victor, who’s watching him like he’s trying to process the sudden appearance of the guy who tried to help kill them in their headquarters.

“So,” says Victor, casually, “you’re the man who stabbed Barry.”

“Why does everyone keep _bringing that up_ ,” says Steve, throwing his hands up. “Anyway, you threw me into a wall.”

“In my defense you were trying to kill me,” Victor points out, and Steve has to hold back a nervous burst of laughter, shove his hands into his pockets so Victor can’t see them shake. Maybe he still can, but if so, he doesn’t bring it up.

Instead Victor just says, “So why are you here?”

“Diana wanted me here,” Steve replies. “She said there was something she wanted me to see, and someone she thought I’d like to meet.” He glances at Diana, who’s talking in low, tense tones with Bruce, then looks back at Victor once more. “You have any idea who she might’ve been talking about?” he asks.

Victor huffs out a breath. “Yeah,” he says, “me.” He looks up at the plane and says, “She’s a beauty, right?”

Steve looks at Diana, and says, “She is.”

“I wasn’t talking about Diana,” says Victor, a little amused, and Steve yanks his eyes away from Diana, from the sweep of her hair and the grace in her movements. “What do you think about the plane?”

“I’d love to fly it someday,” says Steve, truthfully. “I don’t know how _well_ I’d do, I haven’t flown a plane since I—since 1918.” That he remembers, anyway, but he kind of doubts anyone would’ve let him pilot a plane over the past century. Too much of a risk, that he’d remember. That the programming would break.

“How about I give you a tour?” says Victor.

\--

“If this is about letting him fly the plane,” says Bruce, “the answer’s no.”

“Noted,” says Diana. “But it’s not completely about that.”

“You were about to say it.”

“I was about to say a lot of things,” says Diana, folding her arms. “I didn’t realize you could see into the future now.”

Bruce, to his credit, sighs and holds his hands up. “Sorry,” he says. “Okay. Why’d you pull me aside?”

A lot of things. The Hall of Justice. What he’s up to, now that the League has been formed. Steve, and the contingency plans she’s sure Bruce must have in place. The League itself, and the possibility of inviting more.

But one question has been on her mind since the Minotaur, and this is what she asks: “What do you know of AEA Industries?”

“One of the companies that snapped up LexCorp’s contracts after Luthor was sent to Arkham,” says Bruce. “It’s run by a woman named Donna Milton, and I’ve tried to reach out to her a few times.” He shrugs, deceptively careless. “Never gotten a response, unfortunately. She’s a very reclusive person. Why?”

“I have reason to believe,” says Diana, “that the company might have had a hand in the recent rash of murders in Central City.”

“You think they sponsored a serial killer,” says Bruce, flatly.

“I think someone associated with the company might have brought the Minotaur forth from Tartarus,” says Diana. “And before you ask, yes, I know how that sounds. Trust me when I say it’s true.”

“I know it is,” says Bruce, and Diana breathes a sigh of relief. “You’re not in the habit of lying.” He crosses his arms. “So what do you need?”

“Mingle with your peers,” says Diana, and she smirks at Bruce’s theatrical sigh. For someone whose public persona throws parties every other week, Bruce _hates_ mingling with his peers. “Speak to everyone who’s on or associated with the board of AEA Industries. Steve and I will investigate from the bottom up—I need you digging from the top.”

“I suppose I can revise my guest list for this week’s gala,” says Bruce, begrudgingly. “I needed an excuse to kick Ratner off, anyway.” He glances sideways, and Diana knows he’s watching Steve with a wary eye. “I’m still not sure about Trevor.”

He isn’t trying to provoke her, she knows that, only giving what he believes based on what he knows. But Diana bristles anyway, and says, “Do you think I’d bring him here, if I wasn’t sure we could trust him?”

“You’re biased,” Bruce points out.

Diana sucks in a breath. “Clark,” she says, and watches him exhale in defeat.

“Point,” he concedes. Then he turns to squint at the duo, clambering up into the insides of the plane. “What are they doing?”

“Bonding,” says Diana.

“You brought your boyfriend here to bond with Victor?” says Bruce, incredulous.

“Talking to someone similar will be good for both of them,” says Diana, cheerful. “And, I’ll admit, I wanted to see your face when they met.” She grins up at him. “Do you remember when I said he would’ve liked to fly that thing?”

“He’s still not flying it,” says Bruce.

“He might not,” says Diana, “but knowing the two of them? It’s going to be a while before they emerge from that plane.” She pulls out her phone, pulls up a tab and says, “I had some ideas for the hall…”

\--

The plane is huge.

Steve might actually be dreaming. He pinches himself to be sure, then whistles. “Wow,” he says.

“You’re easy to impress,” says Victor, patting the walls. “We’re still repairing it. Aquaman crashed it last week.”

“The last time I flew a plane was in 1918,” says Steve. “Yeah, I’m easy to impress. This is—” He stops, groping around for the best words to describe it. _Beyond my wildest dreams_ doesn’t even begin to cover it. “ _Wow_ ,” he repeats.

Victor chuckles. “Wow is right,” he says. “1918, huh?”

“Yeah, it was—” he starts. Then he pauses, and for a moment he’s in another plane, full of gas canisters. He blinks, and he’s back in an empty plane with only Victor for company and the beginnings of a headache. “It wasn’t great,” he says, holding out a hand to steady himself against the wall. Then he slumps against it.

Victor’s at his side in almost an instant, commanding the lights to dim. Funny, you’d think a cyborg would be cold, but he’s almost warm when Steve leans into him, shutting his eyes and breathing in, then out. “You all right?” Victor asks.

“I—” Steve starts, then he stops. “I have headaches,” he explains. “Flashes, sometimes.”

Victor nods in understanding. “Processing?” he says. “It kinda works that way for me too. Too much information in too little time, and I get the mother of all migraines.”

“Thought you might get a pass on that one,” Steve jokes, weakly.

“Nope,” says Victor. “Some of me is still human enough to get a headache.”

“That sucks,” says Steve, with a tired laugh. “Do you ever just wonder if you’re still— _you_ , underneath everything? Under all the stuff you didn’t ask for? If you’re still human?”

“A lot,” says Victor. “I’m not gonna lie, when I realized I could still get headaches? I had a celebratory pizza once it passed.” He leans back against the wall, metal _thunk_ ing against metal, pulling up a knee. “Less than a year ago, after my accident—all I could think about was what I lost, and if what made me _me_ was a part of that. Now here I am, and I’m figuring maybe I found it again.”

“Maybe?”

“Some days,” says Victor, exhaling, looking at him with an _understanding_ in his human eye, “are better than others.”

Steve pulls his knees up to his chest, curls up tight. “Do you know anything about what happened to me?” he says, quiet.

“Some, yeah,” says Victor. “I’ve got access to Lex Luthor’s personal files. I have a general idea.”

Luthor. That little bastard.

Steve sighs. “I don’t know how to put it,” he says, at last, “but it’s like—someone took me out of my own body. Then they stuffed something else in to do their bidding for them, and now I’m not sure if I’m me or that _something else_.”

“Yeah,” says Victor, “yeah, I kinda know how that feels.” He pauses. “Without the amnesia part, anyway.”

“I don’t recommend it,” says Steve. “My—you could call her my niece, Claire? Has a lot of photo albums, and whenever I see a picture of me in the older ones it’s just like, _who’s that? Shit, it’s me. I don’t remember this._ ”

“Oh, good, you can still stand to look at pictures of yourself before,” says Victor. “I couldn’t for _months_.”

Steve looks up at the ceiling, at the dimmed lights of the carrier. “It’s like looking at somebody else, right?” he says. “Someone you used to be and you can’t be anymore.”

“Exactly,” says Victor. “You look at them and you think, _shit, you poor bastard, you don’t know what you’re in for_ , too?”

Steve huffs out a laugh. “Every time,” he says. “It’s like taking self-pity to a whole new level.”

Victor laughs, too, a tired but _real_ laugh. “I’d offer to get us a drink from the minibar here so we could toast to the old Steve Trevor and Victor Stone,” he says, “but alcohol fucks with my systems.”

“My doctor’s banned me from alcohol until further notice,” says Steve. “Well. I say doctor. More like med student.” He pats his stomach, and says, “Turns out being repeatedly frozen and thawed out and frozen again fucks up your stomach like nothing else, and besides that I can’t even get drunk anymore.”

“You poor bastard,” says Victor, lightly nudging his side with his elbow.

“You too, Stone,” says Steve, lightly punching his shoulder.

Diana climbs up then, her head appearing from the open hatch. “Did you make it to the cockpit yet?” she asks.

\--

“ _Holy shit._ ”

\--

“She talked about you once,” says Victor, once they’ve finished up the tour. Diana’s stepped away for a moment to run some diagnostics on basic systems, and Steve’s a pretty good conversation partner to have. A little charming, in fact, when he relaxes. Victor can see why Diana fell for the guy, besides just the blue eyes.

Doesn’t explain why she’s been holding on to him for a century, though.

Steve jumps a little, and Victor notes that his hand drops straight to his belt, fingers closing around thin air. Old habits die hard, he thinks.

“She did?” he asks, and he sounds—honestly surprised.

“I did,” says Diana, still running diagnostics. “Oh, the air conditioning’s still broken.”

“Yeah, first time we met face-to-face,” says Victor. “She didn’t say your name then, but—I got a feeling she missed you something fierce.” Which is an understatement, really. “I didn’t really connect _dead loved one_ with _masked man on the bridge_ until she said so, though.”

(That had been rough for all involved, to say the least. Not so much for Victor, they’d managed to rescue his father, but Diana had staggered away from the rest of the team after the battle, when he’d dropped back in on them with the mother box.

“Oh, gods,” was all she said, when Victor sat down next to her, before she wept quietly away from the team.)

“I wouldn’t have, either,” says Steve, looking away to Diana. “But—I knew her. I missed her, too.”

\--

**SOME TIME AGO.**

It had been a while, since Victor last comforted— _anyone_ , was the thing. Ever since the accident, he’d been so sure that he’d lost that ability.

But after Diana had unmasked that man who’d been working under Steppenwolf, she had been—erratic. Sort of. Victor hadn’t quite known why.

Then Bruce snarled, “Is that Steve Trevor talking? Wasn’t he the guy working for Steppenwolf when we last saw him?”

Victor had seen that flash of anger in her eyes, just before she shoved Bruce into a crate. They’d probably made up, by now, but she was still shaken. That much was obvious.

And—he owed her one. He owed her a lot.

“Hey,” he said, sitting down next to her. They were en route to Gotham, and she was—

There was a watch, in her hands. She kept rubbing her thumb over the face, reverent, like a ritual.

“You okay?” he asked her.

She sighed, then looked up at him. It was a little strange—he could scan people, being a cyborg, and access any public records on them as well as assess their threat level, but he got the feeling that Diana could see something more than that, when she looked at him. He wondered if she could see who he was.

Who he _truly_ was.

“I told you once,” she said, “that I loved someone. So much so that after I lost him, I—shut myself off.” She rubbed her thumb over the watch again.

“Yeah,” Victor said. Weird, the watch was broken. Who’d keep a broken watch? “You did. Why?”

She breathed sadly out, then put the watch back inside her purse. “That was him,” she said. “Steve Trevor. He was the man on the bridge.” She shut her eyes, jaw clenching. “He didn’t die. _He didn’t die._ ”

Her shoulders shook. Victor scooted closer, then, awkwardly, put his arm around her shoulders. She blinked, surprised, at him.

“I can go,” he said. “If you want.”

Diana shook her head. “I just,” she started, then stopped. “Gods, I wish I knew what happened. I wish I knew how he’s still alive, why he’s working for Steppenwolf, why he didn’t know me. Or even himself.”

Victor said, before he could stop himself, “So he’s a Winter Soldier?”

“A what?” said Diana.

“Uh,” said Victor. “Sort of like—a brainwashed agent, who used to be someone else, once upon a time.” He shrugged, and said, “I’m not sure, I never knew the guy.”

“But I did,” said Diana, then her eyes went wide as something sank in. “Maru survived. She must’ve found him, and she must’ve—”

Victor saw the horror, the anger, the guilt crash down on her, all at once.

“Oh, _Steve_ ,” she whispered, the name carrying the weight of a hundred years of mourning, and Victor wrapped his arms around her and let her weep.


End file.
